"A Better Class of Person A Better Class of Person (1981) is an autobiography written by dramatist John Osborne and published in 1981. Based on Osborne's childhood and early life, it ends with the first performance of ""Look Back in Anger"" at the Royal Court Theatre in 1956. A sequel, ""Almost a Gentleman"", was published in 1991. The book recounts Osborne's childhood and youth, emphasising his warm relationship with his father, and his antagonistic relationship with his mother, which deepened to hatred after his father died when John was ten. The autobiography was preceded by a screenplay entitled ""Too Young"
"A Personal Record A Personal Record is an autobiographical work (or ""fragment of biography"") by Joseph Conrad, published in 1912. It has also been published under the titles ""A Personal Record: Some Reminiscences"" and ""Some Reminiscences"". Notoriously unreliable and digressive in structure, it is nonetheless the principal contemporary source for information about the author's life. It tells about his schooling in Russian Poland, his sailing in Marseille, the influence of his Uncle Tadeusz, and the writing of ""Almayer's Folly"". It provides a glimpse of how Conrad wished to be seen by his British public, as well as being an atmospheric"
"Memoir A memoir (US: /ˈmemwɑːr/; from French: ""mémoire"": ""memoria"", meaning ""memory"" or ""reminiscence"") is a collection of memories that an individual writes about moments or events, both public or private, that took place in the subject's life. The assertions made in the work are understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiography since the late 20th century, the genre is differentiated in form, presenting a narrowed focus. A biography or autobiography tells the story ""of a life"", while a memoir often tells a story ""from a life"", such as touchstone events"
"own life is told in thirteen chapters, written in the first person, documenting key periods in Ruby's life from 1951 (""Conception"" beginning with the words ""I exist!"") to 1992. Between each chapter are (non-consecutive) flashbacks that tell the story from the point of view of one of the other members of Ruby's family—including her great-grandmother Alice, her grandmother Nell and her mother Bunty. While mostly telling the story of the family's women, several of the flashbacks vividly depict the wartime experiences of their male relatives and lovers in both World Wars. One of the these depicts the crew of a"
"The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his ""Memoirs"". Although it had a tortuous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written. Franklin's account of his life is divided into four parts, reflecting the different periods at which he wrote them. There are actual breaks in the narrative between the first three parts, but"
"the late 4th century AD. Margery Kempe, an early 15th-century English woman, is believed to have written the first autobiography in the English language, though it was a production that depended upon the help of scribes. This text provides what could be the best insight into a female, middle class experience in the Middle Ages. Other well-known examples include ""Mein Kampf"" by Adolf Hitler and ""Long Walk to Freedom"" by Nelson Mandela. Life writing Life writing is the recording of memories, and experiences, whether one's own or another's. This applies to many genres and practices, under which can be found"
"Life writing Life writing is the recording of memories, and experiences, whether one's own or another's. This applies to many genres and practices, under which can be found autobiography, biography, memoir, diaries, letters, testimonies, personal essays and, more recently, digital forms such as blogs and email. Life writing can also be linked with genealogical study: when recording one's life it is common to become curious about the lives of others that have affected one over time and, if they have not recorded their own life, to start doing it for them. In the eighteenth century there was an increase in"
"Biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality. Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works"
"is possible to get the most dramatic and highest form of autobiographical narrative. Autobiography An autobiography (from the Greek, αὐτός-""autos"" self + βίος-""bios"" life + γράφειν-""graphein"" to write) is a self-written account of the life of oneself. The word ""autobiography"" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical ""The Monthly Review"", when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as ""pedantic"". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy"
"Confessional writing In literature, confessional writing is a first-person style that is often presented as an ongoing diary or letters, distinguished by revelations of a person's deeper or darker motivations. Originally, the term derived from confession: The writer is not only autobiographically recounting his life, but confessing to his sins. Among the earlier examples is St. Augustine's ""Confessions"", perhaps the first autobiography of Western Europe. In it, he not only recounted the events of his life, he wrestled with their meaning and significance, as in a passage where he tried to fathom why he had stolen pears with friends, not"
"Autobiography An autobiography (from the Greek, αὐτός-""autos"" self + βίος-""bios"" life + γράφειν-""graphein"" to write) is a self-written account of the life of oneself. The word ""autobiography"" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical ""The Monthly Review"", when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as ""pedantic"". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from the periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing"
"has ever read, is the story of one woman's perseverance through past and present tragedy. A Hidden Life A Hidden Life is a memoir by the Dutch-American author Johanna Reiss. Reiss won the Newbery Honor for her account of her experiences as a child during the Holocaust, ""The Upstairs Room"", which was followed by a sequel ""The Journey Back"" (both published by HarperCollins). In ""A Hidden Life"", Johanna Reiss recounts her visit to the home of her youth and the tragedy that followed. She had been 10 years old at the beginning of World War II, and spent nearly three"
"voice of the author. In this work, Franklin's ""persona"" comes alive and presents a man whose greatness does not keep him from being down-to-earth and approachable, who faces up to mistakes and blunders (""errata"") he has committed in life, and who presents personal success as something within the reach of anyone willing to work hard enough for it. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his ""Memoirs"". Although"
"that of the sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), written between 1556 and 1558, and entitled by him simply ""Vita"" (Italian: ""Life""). He declares at the start: ""No matter what sort he is, everyone who has to his credit what are or really seem great achievements, if he cares for truth and goodness, ought to write the story of his own life in his own hand; but no one should venture on such a splendid undertaking before he is over forty."" These criteria for autobiography generally persisted until recent times, and most serious autobiographies of the next three hundred years"
"by a traveller, sometimes in diary form, of the traveler's experiences, written during the course of the journey and later edited for publication. This is a long-established literary format; an early example is the writing of Pausanias (2nd century AD) who produced his ""Description of Greece"" based on his own observations. James Boswell published his ""The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides"" in 1786 and Goethe published his ""Italian Journey"", based on diaries, in 1816. Fannie Calderón de la Barca, the Scottish-born wife of the Spanish ambassador to Mexico 1839–1842, wrote ""Life in Mexico"", an important travel narrative of"
"today is probably a renewal of certainty that we are rooted in the earth, and at the same time in the cosmos,"" as so beautifully described by Vaclav Havel (""The Measure of Man""). The human life, one's biography, is shaped by the inherently creative and uniquely individual power of the ""I"" or Higher Ego or Higher Self. It is an exploration of the role of the ""I"" in unfolding a life full of gifts, opportunities, illnesses, accidents, struggles, tasks, responsibilities, and perhaps above all questions. Biography work invites new self-understanding and, in turn, awakens interest in the experiences of others."
"story of the island is an allegory of life in the camps. Like much of Perec's work, ""W"" is characterized by word play. The title ""W"" is a pun on ""double vé/vie"", referring to the two lives and two stories narrated in the text. W, or the Memory of Childhood W, or the Memory of Childhood (), is a semi-autobiographical work of fiction by Georges Perec, published in 1975. Perec's novel consists of alternating chapters of autobiography and of a fictional story, divided into two parts. The autobiographical thread is a collection of uncertain memories, as well as descriptions of"
"A Confession A Confession (pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform ), or My Confession, is a short work on the subject of melancholia, philosophy and religion by the acclaimed Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. It was written in 1879 to 1880, when Tolstoy was of late-middle age. The book is a brief autobiographical story of the author's struggle with a mid-life existential crisis. It describes his search for the answer to the ultimate philosophical question: ""If God does not exist, since death is inevitable, what is the meaning of life?."" Without the answer to this, for him, life had become ""impossible"". The story"
"by noting that ""[autobiography] is a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the diary, however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time"". Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. The memoir form is closely associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self and more on others during the autobiographer's review of his or her life. ""See"
"to the Rockies, I DEDICATE This Story of My Life."" The book is prescribed as long reading text for CBSE Class 10 subject English Communicative code 101. The Story of My Life (biography) The Story of My Life, first published in 1903, is Helen Keller's autobiography detailing her early life, especially her experiences with Anne Sullivan. Portions of it were adapted by William Gibson for a 1957 ""Playhouse 90"" production, a 1959 Broadway play, a 1962 Hollywood feature film, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's ""Black"" featuring Amitabh Bachchan in the role of Anne Sullivan. The book is dedicated to inventor Alexander"
"Lifelog A lifelog is a detailed chronicle of a person's life involving large amounts of data. In recent years the data is usually captured automatically by wearable technology or mobile devices. People who keep lifelogs about themselves are known as lifeloggers (or sometimes lifebloggers or lifegloggers). Perhaps the first, and probably the most extreme, lifelogger was Robert Shields, who manually recorded 25 years of his life from 1972 to 1997 at 5-minute intervals. The resulting 37-million word diary is thought to be the longest ever written. Perhaps the first person to capture continuous physiological data together with live first-person video"
"besides being a columnist, is also an architecture critic and author of books. Writers who record their experiences, thoughts or feelings in a sequential form over a period of time in a diary are known as diarists. Their writings can provide valuable insights into historical periods, specific events or individual personalities. Examples include Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), an English administrator and Member of Parliament, whose detailed private diary provides eyewitness accounts of events during the 17th century, most notably of the Great Fire of London. Anne Frank (1929–1945) was a 13-year-old girl whose diary from 1942 to 1944 records both her"
"like a reporter, but to shape it in a way that reads like fiction."" Forms within this genre include biography, autobiography, memoir, diary, travel writing, food writing, literary journalism, chronicle, personal essays and other hybridized essays. According to Vivian Gornick, ""A memoir is a tale taken from life—that is, from actual, not imagined, occurrences—related by a first-person narrator who is undeniably the writer. Beyond these bare requirements it has the same responsibility as the novel or the short story: to shape a piece of experience so that it moves from a tale of private interest to one with meaning for"
"Personal narrative Personal narrative (PN) is a prose narrative relating personal experience usually told in first person; its content is nontraditional. ""Personal"" refers to a story from one's life or experiences. ""Nontraditional"" refers to literature that does not fit the typical criteria of a narrative. Charlotte Linde writes about life stories, which are similar to personal narrative: ""A life story consists of all the stories and associated discourse units, such as explanations and chronicles, and the connections between them, told by an individual during the course of his/her lifetime that satisfy the following two criteria: The stories and associated discourse"
"Another Life: A Memoir of Other People Another Life: A Memoir of Other People is an autobiography written by Simon & Schuster publisher Michael Korda and published in the United States in 1999. In this memoir Korda gives an insider account of the world of publishing from the late 1950s through 1990s and creates intimate portraits of the authors, editors, and celebrities he has worked with over the decades. In ""Another Life: A Memoir of Other People"" describes the process of book publishing from the acquisition of a book or author through editing and publication of a manuscript. Korda shares"
"writing to the College of Arms for information about his ancestry. For the remaining years of his life he struggled with the task of recording his life in a satisfactory way, and his death in 1794 came before he could resolve the problem. Six attempts at an autobiography have survived, conventionally identified by the letters A to F: A: ""The Memoirs of the life of Edward Gibbon with various observations and excursions by himself"" (1788–1789). 40 quarto pages (6 missing).B: ""My own Life"" (1788–1789). 72 quarto pages. Describes the first 27 years of his life.C: ""Memoirs of the life and"
"Washington: A Life Washington: A Life is a 2010 biography of George Washington, the first President of the United States, written by American historian and biographer Ron Chernow. The book is a ""one-volume, cradle-to-grave narrative"" that attempts to provide a fresh portrait of Washington as ""real, credible, and charismatic in the same way he was perceived by his contemporaries"". Chernow, a former business journalist, was inspired to write the book while researching another biography on Washington's long-time aide Alexander Hamilton. ""Washington: A Life"" took six years to complete and makes extensive use of archival evidence. The book was released to"
"Alphabiography An alphabiography is an autobiography, often set as an English studies project for high school or college students, consisting of a set of twenty-six short stories or chapters about the writer's life. Each story or chapter has a title starting with a different letter of the alphabet, for example: """"Apple growing"""", """"Baseball"""", """"Cynthia"""" etc. At the end a summation is undertaken. The book ""Totally Joe"" by James Howe is about Joe Bunch who is given an assignment to write his alphabiography – although he thinks it will be boring, it turns out to be the gateway for him to"
"H. P. Lovecraft: A Life H. P. Lovecraft: A Life is a biography of H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) by S. T. Joshi, first published by Necronomicon Press in 1996. The original one-volume edition was reissued in 2004, with a new afterword by Joshi. A new revised/uncut edition (as ""I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft"") (2 vols) has been issued in 2010 (Hippocampus Press); this restores 150,000 words cut for space reasons from the original edition, and is also thoroughly revised and updated in regard to new information on Lovecraft that has come to light since 1996."
"and turning points from the author's life. The author of a memoir may be referred to as a ""memoirist"" or a ""memorialist"". Memoirs have been written since the ancient times, as shown by Julius Caesar's ""Commentarii de Bello Gallico"", also known as ""Commentaries on the Gallic Wars"". In the work, Caesar describes the battles that took place during the nine years that he spent fighting local armies in the Gallic Wars. His second memoir, ""Commentarii de Bello Civili"" (or ""Commentaries on the Civil War"") is an account of the events that took place between 49 and 48 BC in the"
"were also to be found in some form elsewhere: The Invisible Writing The Invisible Writing: The Second Volume Of An Autobiography, 1932-40 (1954) is a book by Arthur Koestler. It follows on from ""Arrow in the Blue"", published a mere two years earlier, and which described his life from his birth in 1905, to 1931, and deals with a much shorter period, a mere eight years (as opposed to the twenty six of the previous volume). This was nonetheless, a highly significant period in Koestler's life, as it involved his membership and subsequent alienation from the Communist movement. As well"
"A Sort of Life A Sort of Life is the first volume of autobiography by British novelist Graham Greene, first published in 1971. This volume covers Greene's early life, from mundane childhood in Surrey, through to school and university and on to his early working life as a sub editor at The Times and his years as a struggling novelist. His memoirs have been criticized for being oddly impersonal and for brushing over his marriage and his conversion to Catholicism, especially as his faith was to become a powerful motif in many of his novels. Despite these omissions he deals"
"An American Life An American Life is the 1990 autobiography of former American President Ronald Reagan, ghostwritten by Robert Lindsey. Released almost two years after Reagan left office, the book reached number eight on ""The New York Times"" Best Seller list. The book is composed of 748 pages, describing Reagan's life from his birth in Tampico, Illinois, to his acting career, marriages, entrance into politics, years as Governor of California, loss in the 1976 Republican primary, and finally his years as President of the United States. Reviewer John O'Sullivan says of Reagan, ""[H]e shows a tendency, where other people's feelings"